Friday the 13th at the Exxon Station

Greetings from the Exxon Station. Yes, most nights we come to the Exxon station to bring you our daily reports and for Ben to do his homework. It has a great Internet connection.

Today was our last day of work. They crew finished all of the painting today. Dudley finished installing the toilet for the house. It feels good to see some projects completed. The home should be complete in about 1 month.

Mariann took Mary back with her today to the Christian Care Center. They worked in the back room sorting clothes and going through donations that were brought in to the center. Today was dollar day, so the store was rather busy.


Tonight, the North Carolina group and FCC spent some time together. We went to eat at a wonderful Seafood restaurant. After returning to the church Mariann lead us in worship concluding with sharing communion together.

It has been a great week, but everyone is ready to head for home in the morning. We will leave about 7:00 A.M.

We want to thank Slidell for opening their home and heart to us.

The couple (Lee, Michelle, and Cooper) pictured opened their home to us to have a source of water and a bathroom.

This is Mary's childhood friend Jerry. She grew up with him in Louisiana.

Birthdays, Water, and Toilets...Oh My!

Today is Meg’s Birthday. Happy Birthday Meg. We have enjoyed having her as part of our group. We are going to try to keep her instead of sending her back to her own church.

News Flash: It has been two nights since Ben has fallen out of bed (this does not include the time Mary pushed Ben out of bed for no apparent reason).

In other news, Drew awoke with a special surprise--- Pink Toe Nails. This is courtesy of Hannah and Jamie.

Today was another day of work at the Liberty Street House. The group finished chipping up the old flooring. Yeah!!!!!! Priming was also completed in the main living room and closets. We were able to get the water turned on today. The group worked on getting a pipe fixed in the kitchen. This involved tearing out dry wall, fixing the pipe, putting up dry wall and mudding the dry wall back in place. Tomorrow they hope to bring us a toilet that can be installed and used We will begin painting the walls in the morning. That may sound easy, but there is still no air conditioning and it is 300 degrees outside.

Today Mariann went to the Community Christian Concern office. This organization is much like our Paducah Cooperative Ministry. It is funded by local churches and civic organizations. They help with people getting emergency assistance. They also have a small food bank and a thrift store called Janet’s Korner . Their secretary was out for a while, so Mariann was quickly trained to complete intake forms so that people could see a counselor and receive help. After their secretary returned, Mariann went to help out in the thrift store. She spent some time sorting clothes and visiting with the people that came in to buy items of clothing for themselves and their family. She met lots of interesting people and listened to their stories about their survival of the Hurricane. She will return there tomorrow.

Look out New Orleans here we come.

Also included in our pictures today are ones of our trip to the 9th Ward yesterday.

If you would like to visit the website of the church where we're staying, go to http://www.firstchristianchurchdoc.com/. If you'd like more information about Community Christian Concern, visit http://www.slidellccc.org/.

FCC on Tour

Our group continues to work at the Liberty Street home. Today we got to meet the mother and uncle of the owner of the house we are working on. We continue to remove tile from the floor and prime the walls for painting. Again today ,we had to unload a HEAVY load of flooring. Work continues to go smoothly.

Today was a half day of work for both groups. After meeting back a the church we headed off to New Orleans for a tour of the Hurricane damage. The trip in was amazing. Lots and lots of buildings still sitting as they were left after the hurricane. We saw apartments buildings where help was painted on the roofs.

We also visited the 9th Ward. It was a very emotional tour. There were whole neighborhoods that were just abandoned. In some cases there are just concrete slabs where a house once stood. In some of the pictures you will notice where they sprayed painted on the houses. This was done to identify homes with bodies, abandoned animals, and toxic flood waters.

After our tour we went into downtown New Orleans. We did a walking tour of the French Quarter. There is still evidence of how the wind damaged the downtown.

Below are pictures of the 9th Ward and downtown New Orleans.

Lights On!!!!!!!

Our day began at 6:30 A.M. sharp with the call "Lights On!". After breakfast the groups headed for their work sites. The groups separated today to work on 2 different sites.
Our group went back to the Liberty House today. We are learning that we have skills such as scraping floor tiles and texturing the walls with joint compound that resembles an orange peel. Its ashame that we didn't have a tan color for the sprayer since we were covered from head to toe.


















We continue to rely on the generous nature of the next door neighbor for our nature calls, however we think Ben has worn out our welcome since he would traispe over frequently today to work on the cross word puzzles in the bathroom!

Speaking of Ben, we need to add an item to our mission trips in the future -bumper pads for the air mattresses - he has fallen off his each night.
During the day, a huge thunderstorm approached the house. Our field coordinator Jamie was wiped-out from carrying supplies to the other job site. As the rain began to fall, Jamie stayed asleep on top of the plywood in the back of her truck. Ben is seen in the picture on his way to the house next door for word search time.


















As we were leaving the work site, a truck load of HEAVY floor tile was delivered. We had to unload it in the pouring rain. Yet we found out that we had the easy task. The North Carolina group had to dig a trench in the pouring rain at their site. Mariann thinks she had the worst job of all today - sorting our dirty laundry and washing it! At least it wasn't in the pouring rain!

The church provided us with a wonderful potluck meal. Red Beans and Rice, Crawfish pie, and our standard chicken and dumplins. It was a wonderful time of food and fellowship. We may be the only mission group that gains weight while we are here.




LIGHTS OUT!

It's a hot one!

Hello everyone!

We hope you enjoy reading this blog, because it is not easy to post it every night. After driving around several parking lots in Slidell, we finally found one where we can pick up a wireless Internet signal, as the church where we're staying does not have one. So, we have to park the van, and balance the computer on the armrest of the passenger seat in order to barely receive a signal. Just know that it ain't easy!



Today we went to orientation at Aldersgate Methodist Church which is across the street from where we're staying. This church is the headquarters for Northshore Disaster Recovery, with whom we're working this week. We're part of a group of about 300 volunteers this week working on different projects in Slidell. Today we were told how important we (and all the volunteers) are to the recovery effort. Slidell's population has increased from 35,000 to 75,000 since Katrina with virtually no increase in the workforce because most of the new residents are elderly. Workers are so scare that even McDonald's and Burger King pay kids $12 an hour to work behind the counter!

Our worksite is a house on Liberty Street in Slidell. It has been vacant since Hurricane Katrina hit. The lady who owns the house lives across the street in a FEMA trailer with her mother who has Alzheimer's Disease. We did not get to meet the owner since she works during the day.

The house has no electricity or water, so we have to get those two necessities from a next-door neighbor. The neighbor's house was also severely damaged by the hurricane, but she and her husband were able to return to it shortly after Christmas--just a few months after Katrina--and the house looks beautiful. Since volunteers helped them get back into their home, they offer their bathroom and electricity for the volunteers working next door.

We had to do a lot of waiting today for supplies and instructions, but we should not have that problem the rest of the week. Here's what we're doing to the house, in no particular order: scraping up old flooring (very difficult and time consuming); finishing drywall (not to difficult if you know what you're doing, like Drew and Hannah); texturing drywall (should be easy once we get a sprayer that works); priming drywall and ceilings (not difficult). Although most of these things are not difficult, having no air conditioning raises the bar quite a bit. Needless to say, we were ready to hit the showers when the workday was completed! They told us at orientation to drink 8 to 10 bottles of water a day, so we filled up a cooler to refill our bottles.


After we finally got to work on the house, we accomplished quite a bit in few hours. Then, we went back to the church for dinner. The North Carolina group made spaghetti, and we made garlic bread and salad. It was a good meal.

Afterwards, a few of us went to the mall and Starbucks just to get out of the small fellowship hall for a little while. Since it's about 11 now, we need to go back to the church and get some rest! Catch up with us again tomorrow!

The FCC Mission Team

Photo 1: The Northshore Disaster Recovery office flies the state (and country) flags of its volunteers for each week.

Photo 2: This is our group with the North Carolina group outside the church where we're staying.

Photo 3: Our orientation this morning with volunteers from all over the world.

Photo 4: Mary and Dudley survey the situation at the house where we worked today. (I don't think Mary wanted her picture taken.)

Photo 5: Meg does some priming in the house.

Mission Team Travels to Slidell Eating All the Way

The Mission Team left F.C.C. at about 5:15 A.M. this morning. We have managed to eat our way across several states. We started out with Kathy McHaney's Homemade Blue Ribbon Biscuits. Yummy. Thanks Kathy.

It has now become Mission Trip tradition to eat at Ruby Tuesday's. This is where we had lunch.

We have also snacked on brownies baked by Rhona James and Chocolate Chip Cookies baked by Gail Wagner, and snacks provided by Drew's Grandmother. Thank you all very much!

We arrived safely in Slidell about 5:00 P.M. We will be staying at F.C.C. of Slidell. There is another group here from Walnut Cove, N.C.

A total of 14 people and 1 shower in our building. We will have to go over to the shower trailers at the Methodist Church. We will get our work assignment in the morning.

There are still signs of the awful effects of Hurricane Katrina. Many places are still not rebuilt as you can see in the pictures. One of the church members told us that 80% of Slidell was flooded.